Good morning. This is The Washington Sun Metro Newsletter for Nov. 11, 2026. You can get it in your inbox every day by signing up here — it’s free!
In today’s newsletter: Waymo in the District, rising utility bills and AI slop.
Capital Weather’s Daily Digit — 8/10. Enjoy one more scrumptious fall day before clouds, a chance of showers and eventually a breezy chill move in. Read the full forecast.
THE LATEST
Trending
Self-driving cars may be running out of road in D.C., The Sun’s Zara Norman and Martin Austermuhle report.
There’s enough opposition among D.C. Council members to sink a bill that would legalize passenger service in autonomous vehicles operated by Waymo and others. So in a Hail Mary, bill author Charles Allen has redrafted it, adding concessions that he hopes will persuade skeptics to sign on.
Allen’s new version would cap the number of AVs at 800 across D.C. for all companies, and would allow both rideshare drivers and those working at AV maintenance facilities collective bargaining rights — a significant enticement to labor unions who have balked at the tech out of fear it’ll displace rideshare and taxi drivers.
“The very things they say that they want — safer streets, protections for workers, a robust regime that keeps an eye on a growing technology — they will see it in this bill. They will not see it in any other jurisdiction, and that’s what I’m going to ask my colleagues to evaluate,” Allen told reporters this week. “We’ll see where the chips fall.”
We could see as soon as tomorrow, when Allen’s team anticipates D.C.’s transportation committee will mark up the bill and decide whether to send it through to a full council vote.
It’s unclear if the concessions will prove persuasive. All three council members who have recently come out as opposed said they want to delay any vote until the next legislative session, when new council members and Mayor-elect Janeese Lewis George’s appointees take office. Uber also called for more time in a statement to The Sun.
What is clear: Unions aren’t sold, and they have key council members’ ears. In a joint statement, the ATU Local 689, the International Association of Machinists and 32BJ SEIU called Allen’s changes “rushed quick fixes that don’t provide sufficient safeguards against job displacement, guarantee labor standards, or passenger safety.”
DEEP DIVE
How much money should Pepco and Washington Gas be guaranteed to make in D.C.?
That was a hotly debated question Tuesday in the D.C. Council, where lawmakers gave initial approval to a bill that proponents say will help bring down residents’ ever-rising utility bills, The Sun’s Martin Austermuhle reports.
A central provision of the bill, known as the GRID Act, would ask the D.C. Public Service Commission — which reviews rate increase requests — to consider lowering what’s known as a utility company’s return on equity. Put more simply, that’s the profit they are guaranteed when setting rates paid by residents and businesses. The current return on equity is 9.8%; the bill suggests one closer to 7%.
Similar pushes to reduce returns on equity have happened in California, Pennsylvania, the U.S. House of Representatives and even in Baltimore this week, where lawmakers pushed for their own decrease.
Pepco and Washington Gas unsuccessfully pushed back on any change to the current return on equity, arguing that tweaking it could make borrowing money for capital projects more costly — “ultimately putting upward pressure on customer bills,” Pepco said.
Some lawmakers were uneasy with the change, with Ward 7 council member Wendell Felder saying he worried about “unintended consequences” of changes to utility companies’ profits. Still, Allen, the Ward 6 council member, said any of those consequences would be less than the savings that could come. “It’s a tradeoff I am willing to make,” he said.
The debate isn’t over, though. A second and final vote is expected later this month.
FROM THE DISTRICT
Artificial Ingredients: If you’ve taken a stroll around the District lately, you’ve probably seen it: a restaurant advertising itself with AI-generated pictures of “food.”
The less-than-desirable imagery, which includes chicken tenders that appear to have warts and a chicken parm that looks more like a grinning monster than a sandwich, has alarmed some D.C. residents enough to spur online complaints and concerns about whether the ads constitute false advertising. The Sun’s Justice Covert spoke with At-Large council member Christina Henderson, who chairs the D.C. Committee on Health, and a lawyer experienced in the legality of AI-generated advertising to find out whether these business owners have done anything wrong.
A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to preserve any information or documents related to the closure, redesign, renovation or the concept of a potential redesign or renovation of East Potomac Golf Links made or modified since Aug. 1, 2025, Justice reports.
A Secret Service motorcyclist was critically injured Tuesday after being struck by an SUV near the National Zoo, The Sun’s Kendall Staton reports. The agency did not say whether the officer had been on duty at the time.
D.C.’s housing market is in a slump, City Cast D.C. reports. Home sales in October fell 19% from the same time last year, while active listings surged 22% and prices barely slipped. It’s not unusual for the market to slow in the lead-up to an election, but it’s more likely that stubbornly high interest rates and an average median sale price of more than $670,000 are keeping would-be buyers at bay.
The D.C. Council may have unlawfully used national opioid settlement funds to cover some of the District’s Medicaid costs, The Washington Business Journal reports.
Taste of the South, the annual D.C. charity gala, is marking its 45th anniversary by dedicating proceeds to veterans organizations in all 13 member states, plus Georgetown-based Dog Tag Inc., The Sun’s Torrie Herrington reports. “All of the [charities] have the same goal: To improve the livelihood of folks after they leave active service,” said TOTS Chairman Andrés Bascumbe, a veteran himself.
The organization, which has raised more than $10 million for over 600 charities in its history, will host its black-tie celebration at The Anthem on July 17.
FROM MARYLAND
A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit challenging a Montgomery County gun ban that the Justice Department claimed violated the Second Amendment, The Sun’s Kendall Staton reports.
PLAN YOUR WEEKEND
For New Yorker readers: Nick Paumgarten and Evan Osnos at Politics and Prose, Thursday.
For hopeless romantics: “Love Isn’t Blind” at the National Union Building, Friday.
For cowboys and cowgirls: “Boots on the Boardwalk” at the Yards, Saturday.
For more info on this weekend’s events, read our weekly culture calendar here.
SPORTS
Audi Field will pull off a quick change on Saturday. The Spirit will play its NWSL semifinal match at noon. The Secretaries’ Cup, the annual college football game between the U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Merchant Marine Academies, will kick off that evening. D.C. United, which manages the venue, is navigating the schedule conflict by hosting both events in one day.
“We understood the importance of Audi Field to the Spirit, as we always have, but we also have our commitment to the Secretaries’ Cup,” D.C. United president of business operations Danita Johnson told The Sun’s Emma Baccellieri. “It was trying to figure out: Is there a way that we could do something special? And that’s what is coming to life currently.”
Bob Boone, the most decorated member of baseball’s first three-generation family and a central part of the Nationals’ brain trust for years, died Monday. The Sun’s Dave Sheinin writes that Boone drew some of the front office’s most critical assignments, such as shepherding players like Bryce Harper and Stephen Strasburg through the minors.
Business casual in the backfield: When Lamont Butler, a senior at Ron Brown in Northeast D.C., realized he had forgotten to pack an undershirt for last week’s football game, he decided to dress up for the occasion. Wearing a shirt and tie under his uniform, Butler had his best game of the season, The Sun’s Noah Ferguson reports.
What to Watch Today
NBA: Wizards vs. Pacers, 7 p.m. (Monumental)
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The newsletter was produced by Jaden Amos, Michael Errigo and Nikie Johnson.
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